Commission on Elections (Comelec) officials are now asking this as two incidents of robbery were recorded in the printing press that makes the ballots for the coming national and local polls.
First, 19 reams of waterproof security paper used for ballots were found to be missing. Then last week, a casual Comelec employee was caught while trying to steal copies of official ballots.
Comelec Commissioner Resurreccion Borra said they are looking into reports that a syndicate called Black Samurai has penetrated the poll body.
"We are investigating the casual employee we caught to find out if he’s a member of this group," he said.
The casual employee, whose name the Comelec refused to reveal, was assigned in the poll body’s printing committee that monitors the printing of official ballots for the May 14 elections.
Sometime last week, he was caught by Marine soldiers guarding the National Printing Office (NPO) in Quezon City while about to leave the place.
A search of his bag yielded five official ballots which he was allegedly trying to smuggle out of NPO.
"Luckily he was caught. Only God knows what could have happened had he been able to take those ballots out," he said.
The employee, surprisingly, was not charged and Borra offered no explanation. He noted, however, that the Comelec is inclined to believe that the employee may have been hired by some candidates to steal copies of the ballots. – Pia Lee Brago